HEAT: A Dark Romance

by Sophia Gray

  “I think I’m telling the truth,” I said without blinking. “His cock is a good eight inches and…oh. You guys don’t want to hear about that kind of stuff, huh.”

  “No,” the driver said from across the room. “We want to know what you know about Kovalsky and his mob.”

  “Oh.” I tilted my head to the side. My ear ached, and my head was starting to hurt, and my cheek still smarted, too. This was an interrogation. By Anton’s enemies. This so wasn’t going to end well for me. I shrugged, trying not to show any sign of fear or worry. “Honestly, there’s nothing to tell you.”

  The driver walked away, out of view, around the corner of the basement. I could hear rummaging around, and my fear level spiked.

  “Honestly,” I said, my voice almost squeaking. “He doesn’t talk to me about the mob. Not at all. We just…we don’t talk about that. Just positions and what’s for dinner and stuff like that.” Damn. Damn it. I was telling the truth! But it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. I didn’t even know enough to be able to realistically lie.

  The driver came back into view, his hands behind his back. My heart sank.

  “I…I swear. I don’t know anything. I know nothing. I swear.”

  Handsy and Brute exchanged a glance. Handsy stood and touched my cheek, the one he had hit, and slid his hand down my chest, palming my breast through my shirt. “Maybe you need to be introduced to my cock and feel that to remember.”

  I swallowed hard, gripping the edge of my chair so I didn’t stand and try to run away. If I did that, I was basically begging them to attack me. They always said the truth would set you free. Not in this instance. They weren’t going to believe that I knew nothing.

  “Out of the way,” Driver snapped.

  Immediately, Brute and Handsy stepped back.

  Driver approached me, a strange nasty-looking metal object in one hand, a knife in the other. He trailed the blade of against my jawline. “I’m going to ask you one more time. What do you know about Kovalsky and his mob?”

  I couldn’t handle this. I can’t keep quiet. “I know I’m pregnant with Kovalsky’s baby!” I blurted out.

  All three men took a step back, glancing at each other and then back at me.

  Oh God, did I just make things worse? I wished I had kept my fat mouth shut. These guys weren’t going to turn over a new leaf just because I hadn’t kept my legs close. If anything, I just ensured I wasn’t going to be free anytime soon.

  Anton…I never should’ve left you.

  But was it fair to think that? I had left him because I wanted to try to prevent something like this. Anton had killed a man, maybe a friend of one of these guys. I had wanted to keep the baby away from Anton and his lifestyle because I was afraid it would end up just like this.

  What was I going to do? Would I get out of this alive? What about the baby?

  Chapter 28

  Anton

  It had been a whirlwind of a few hours. I tried to drive north, but I couldn’t find them, so I gathered all of my men together and then sent most out to scavenge the city. I wanted Lily found, and I wanted her found yesterday.

  Then I called Alec. He didn’t answer — which wasn’t a surprise. He normally didn’t, not when he was undercover like he was now, seducing Golovkin’s daughter. But I called him back again and again until he finally did answer.

  “What’s up?” he asked in that slow, lazy way of his that told me he had just finished seducing the daughter yet again.

  “I need you,” I snapped.

  “At the house?”

  “No. Our normal meet up.” I hung up. I couldn’t stand to be behind these walls another second. I left my servants and Leo strict orders to call me if Lily returned and to not leave the premises. Then I called up another one of my men and sent him to join Lily’s mother. I felt better if she had another bodyguard on hard, just in case.

  This is all on me. All of me. I never should have told her about killing that guy. Not unless I wanted to tell her everything.

  It didn’t take a genius to realize she had wanted to leave me, and I couldn’t blame her. A few times, I had considered telling her everything, all about my past, all about my present, all about my desire for revenge, but I hadn’t wanted to be that open.

  Why?

  Because of fear. I didn’t think there was any way she would want to stay with me if she knew the truth. I was a mob boss, heavily involved with fights and gambling. It wasn’t a glamorous life, but it was my life. It was also a dangerous life. I wanted to keep her separate, to keep her safe. But mostly, I just wanted to keep her. I wanted her.

  This was new — this feeling of wanting and needing another person. After losing my parents, my family, I had closed myself off to people. Other than Nicolai and Alec, I didn’t let people in. Not even them, not fully, and not the rest of my men either. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to get hurt again. I didn’t want to feel helpless. I didn’t want to accept that I needed others.

  But I did. I needed my men to help me find the one I needed most of all — Lily..

  Would I be able to save them both — Lily and her mom? And the baby Lily was carrying, too?

  Life used to be so uncomplicated, back before Golovkin resurfaced, when I had no cares, no worries, and access to any woman I wanted.

  Did I want to go back to those carefree days?

  No.

  I rushed to my car and drove to our meet-up spot. Every month, I changed it to a new one. Couldn’t be too careful in this business, though my not being careful with my mouth was what got us into this mess in the first place.

  When I freed Lily, I’d kill every last one of Golovkin’s men and then him, too, and be done with the lot of them. Then I’d sit Lily down and…what? Tell her everything? I wouldn’t even blame her if she wanted nothing to do with me, and if that were the case…I’d let her go. With my child. I’d provide for them both, without a doubt, and it would kill me to do it, but I would step aside. I would never force Lily to stick by my side. Next chance I got — once she was safe, of course — I’d rip up the contract.

  It took me much longer to reach the meet up point than I would’ve liked. Traffic conspired against me. Fuck, it felt like the entire world was conspiring against me.

  As soon as I pulled into the vacant lot at the back of a bunch of foreclosures on the south side of the city, I knew something was up. I had a small scar near my ear from a knife fight when I was sixteen and had been too big for my britches. An older guy held me down and cut me with his pocketknife. In the end, I managed to knock the knife away and pin him in a wrestling move. Didn’t threaten him at all, just claimed his knife as my own. The scar he left behind often itched when danger was afoot, and it had happened too many times with eerie accuracy, enough to make it a legit warning system for me.

  The scar was itching now, almost burning in intensity.

  The feeling and my apprehension grew as I climbed out of my car. Alec’s car was parked a little farther back, and I rushed over. Why wasn’t he getting out of his car?

  I rounded the car to his side, and that’s when I discovered why.

  Alec was dead. A gory, bloody death. Around his neck was a rope and tied to it was a note.

  Another body will be delivered if you don’t give up the search.

  The search for Lily? Or the search to discover the real motive for Golovkin’s return to my town?

  My cell rang. No number popped up. Blocked call.

  With a grimace, I answered. “Yes?” I asked tersely.

  “I take it you got my message.”

  Vanya Golovkin. I might not have heard his voice in years, but it was instantly recognizable — guttural, low, insanely deep.

  “What the fuck—”

  “Listen to me,” he barked. “We have your girlfriend. Your pregnant girlfriend. I know you will do anything to have your precious heir. Heard about your little offer about finding a woman to bang until you knocked her up. Your desperation reeks, little Kovalsky. I can smell it
from here. How badly do you want your whore and your heir?”

  I was seething mad, practically foaming at the mouth. Before I could lay into him with a long and bitter foul-mouthed tirade, he started to laugh, the sound grating and irritating me to no end.

  “Either you get me ten million,” Golovkin added, “or your whore and your baby will die.”

  And he hung up.

  Chapter 29

  Lily

  Some time had passed. Those three guys hadn’t done anything else to me, hadn’t asked any more questions, hadn’t hurt me either, just huddled up and talked among themselves. The driver got a phone call and stepped out. Then he returned and ordered the other two to leave. He stayed with me, leaning against the back wall again, eyeing me.

  By this point, I was getting hungry. And lightheaded. And thirsty. But I didn’t dare ask for anything. I didn’t want their food. I didn’t want anything from them. I wanted to be home again. Strange. When I thought of home, the image that popped into mind wasn’t the house where Mom was living. No, I immediately thought of Anton’s house. Strange. Stupid. I was so stupid.

  Anton… Did he know I had left? Did he understand why I had? Did he think I just wanted to visit with my mom? Was my mom safe? Had she seen me be taken? Did the police know? Did anyone?

  There was no way for me to get out of here. I took a single self-defense class years ago. A lot of good that would do me. I wasn’t strong enough to handle any one of those guys, and I might not see any weapons on them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t carrying. The thought of one of them pointing a gun at me or touching a blade to my skin had my stomach cramping up.

  Relax. I had to relax. Stress wasn’t good for the baby.

  Neither was the mom being kidnapped.

  My hand went to my belly. I wasn’t far along at all. I hadn’t even had time to make an appointment with an OB yet. I didn’t know when my due date was. Would I be able to hold this baby? The only hope I had — that the baby and I had — was for Anton to come for me. With his insistence about the bodyguards, he feared something like this would happen. He was paranoid, and that would hopefully make him puzzle everything out. But that still didn’t mean he knew where they would take me.

  I never should have run away. Anton had told me once he could only vouch for my safety at his place. I had thought leaving might give the baby a better chance at life, but honestly, that might not have been the case. I would’ve had to look over my shoulder, wondering if Anton would ever come to collect the child. Plus, I would have had to find a job and medical insurance and I would have needed money for daycare. Yes, I could’ve tapped into the money Anton paid for the child, but I hadn’t wanted my mom to worry or need money herself.

  Leaving hadn’t been in the best interests of the child, and maybe I hadn’t only left for the baby. Maybe I had been terrified to realize I had fallen for a man who was a mob boss, who was a killer. And yet, here I was, imagining Anton bursting in, firing shots, and killing my captors. He’d sweep me into his arms and carry me out of here. A chauffeur would drive us home and would ignore our wandering hands in the backseat and then Anton would carry me inside his house and bathe me and then take me to bed.

  But what if Anton was angry with me for running away? I wouldn’t be able to blame him for that. He paid me to do a job for him, and I ran away without fulfilling my end of the deal. It would probably be easier for him to forget all about me, to leave me for dead, to find another woman willing to spread her legs and give him a baby.

  My head lowered and bobbed, and although I fought sleep — too afraid of what the driver would do to me if he stopped standing there, staring at me — I eventually succumbed. My dreams were terrible and vivid, but when I gasped awake, my heart pounding, my forehead covered in sweat, I couldn’t remember what the nightmare had been about.

  “You’re awake.” Handsy was back. Driver was gone.

  I held up my hands as if to ward him off, even though he was standing several feet away from me.

  He grunted.

  Footsteps sounded, and I gripped the chair to keep myself from getting up and running away. The rope remained in the corner, and I did not want them to decide I was a flight risk and tie me. I would cooperate. Maybe they would grow lax. Leave me alone. Give me an opening. I wouldn’t be able to fight my way out, but maybe I could sneak away.

  The driver entered. He carried a plate and a cup and held it out to me.

  I took it. Burnt toast, some soup, and water. I drank some, but just looking at the food made my stomach churn. I was way too nauseated to even try to eat anything. Keeping my eyes on the guys, I slowly bent down and placed the plate on the ground.

  I just wanted to get out of here.

  I just wanted to go home.

  I just wanted to be safe.

  Would I ever feel safe again?

  ***

  I dozed off again, too restless to sleep deeply. At one point, Handsy grabbed me. I struggled from him, but when the driver came over with his hand near his belt, I resisted. Handsy shoved the toast into my mouth, forcing too much in. I had no choice but to chew, and he crammed more in. It didn’t taste good going down, and it tasted even worse coming back up again. Only because of instinct did I turn away from both of them to puke. Wished I vomited all over them instead.

  The driver cursed me, and Handsy gave me a towel. Before I could start to wipe my mouth, he was already yanking on my arm, pulling me along. Soon we were back outside. There weren’t any stars visible in the sky, and even the moon seemed to be hiding. No one and nothing were parties to the spectacle of the guys forcing me back into the car, touching me as little as possible, acting like I had cooties.

  Never seen a pregnant woman before? I wanted to shout at them. I don’t have a disease. I’m not sick. You all are. For kidnapping me. For listening to your boss, whoever he is. Wonder how much their boss is paying them.

  Just before the driver could shut my door, I shoved my leg out to block it. “Look, I don’t know who your boss is,” I said in a rush, “but whatever he’s paying you, Anton can—”

  “Anton Kovalsky can pay our boss, who will then pay us.” The driver slammed the door so hard the car rattled.

  I wiped myself off. Driver got behind the wheel and took off, driving fast but safely. Even though he wasn’t turning corners tight, my stomach didn’t appreciate any movement, and I wound up sick again. Neither of them made any comments, and I just did my best to grin and bear it.

  Watching the dark scenery go by made my stomach even more nauseous. Closing my eyes worsened it. Nothing helped.

  After what felt like an hour, or maybe even longer, the car finally slowed. The driver opened the door for me, and I practically fell out of the car. Handsy walked around to hold my one arm.

  The house they led me through the back door of was massive. Almost as nice as Anton’s. In the darkness, I didn’t see many details, but it still made an impressive sight.

  This time, I wasn’t shoved into the basement. I was taken into a room devoid of furniture. Two windows with dark curtains. And another stupid chair. More rope in the corner.

  The guys left me, and I heard the lock of the door. Not wanting to lie down on the floor, I opted for the seat. Resting in a chair, a metal fold-up chair, was so uncomfortable, but I didn’t wake up because I had fallen off. No. I woke up because my stomach was cramping again. Terrible, sharp bolts of pain.

  Even worse was the blood I saw darkening my pants.

  Oh no. Oh God. Was I…I couldn’t be…

  The room was empty. No one was guarding me. I would love to try and sneak away, but I wasn’t sure I could get far, and if I left the room and found someone, I would be in an even worse way. Besides, the door was most likely still locked anyhow.

  Well, there was one way to see if anyone was around.

  I screamed like mad, blood curdling and terrified, almost a wail.

  Immediately, someone approached, his or her footsteps pounding down the hallway outside
. Good thing I didn’t try to leave. Another cramp seized me, and I gasped for breath. I wouldn’t have been able to get far anyhow.

  The door opened to reveal Brute. He stared at me. “What’s…oh.”

  I could only nod as I started to cry.

  Without a word, he left and came back with a dark blanket he laid on the ground. “Lie down,” he said a little kinder than I would have expected.

  Still crying, I lay down, curled up in a ball.

  “Ah…what…um… I’ll go ask my boss what we should do.” And Brute practically ran out of there.